Novice Gardeners' Puzzles

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23839, 14 December 1940, Page 11 (Supplement)

Novice Gardeners' Puzzles

the slimmer advances and the growth of plants proceeds through its various phases. the novice in gardening will come up against a variety ol unexpected and puzzling problems. Plants do not always adhere strictly to norma! character. Even while enjoying thoroughly favourable conditions; certain individuals in a hatch may behave in a strange manner and questions arise concerning the cause and the eonsequence. When a gardener says that a plant has gone "blind," he does not imply that he supposes plants to be gifted with the power of vision. The use of the term has a delinite meaning that something has occurred which has caused a plant, or possibly only one of several branches, to fail to develop properly and to make normal progress toward flower or fruit. This condition often arises in young plants of the cabbage tribe and particularly cauliflowers. Ihe blind plant will start to grow like the others, making several spreading leaves to present at first glance an appearance of normal condition. For some obscure reason, it then stops producing new leaves and shows no growing point on the summit of the stem to which the stalks oi the few existing leaves are

Some Unusual Problems Explained

attached. Those lew leaves may continue to increase in size for some time, but without its growing point, the plant can never produce a heart and the only thing to do is to pull it up Shoots of chrysanthemums and roses sometimes go "blind." In their case it may be possible to restore the branch to service, by pruning ii hack to plump, healthy gr.owth buds, situated at fb<' axils of the lower leaves. The causes of "blindness" may he an inherent weakness in the seed stock, in which case, numerous blind seedlings will appear in sowing. It may be physical weakness caused In poverty of the soil, perpetual saturation, or the reverse, a dust dry condition. In the case of such plants as roses, chrysanthemums. carnations. etc., insect pe<ts, particularly those mites and maggots which bore their way into the pith, are commonly the cause of the trouble. The obvious thing to be done there, is to clear up the pests and prune hack to induce new growth. Sweet peas often go blind at the tips of the shoots, if they become infested with greenfly.